Jacob was shown a ladder into heaven, with angels ascending and descending. But he understood that experience very differently after he later climbed the ladder himself. The process is seen from the outside as climbing a ladder, but experienced as crawling with your face on the ground.
In his youth, fleeing from his murderous brother, Jacob crossed the wilderness to spend twenty years as a stranger in a strange land. He lived in a foreign culture, serving under an unfair and dishonest man, dealing with the daily struggles of serving two capricious and inconsistent wives, many children, many servants, and a large cattle operation. This daily grind culminated in his return home.
His journey was intense. He was in charge of a sizable company of men, women, cattle, and small children. There would have been substantial work to do to care for the cattle and children along the way, making the long journey of several hundred miles even longer. The trip could have taken months. The whole time he was beset by anxiety over what Esau might do to him and his family once they reunited. Jacob “was greatly afraid and distressed” in fear of his brother, who he thought wanted to kill him (see Genesis 32:7).
Upon reaching the river, Jacob sent his company ahead in partitions. He was left alone at evening. Despite the arduous journey and the exhaustion that no doubt overwhelmed him, he spent the entire night in focused, intense prayer. At some point in the night, the Lord appeared to Jacob. Here is the Genesis account of Jacob’s experience:
24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.
25 And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.
26 And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.
27 And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. 28 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
29 And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there.
30 And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.
31 And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.
32 Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew that shrank. (Genesis 32)
This account has been modified and degraded over time. Here is a more accurate account of what transpired.
Instead of appearing in a dream, where the physically impure body is protected from the glory of the Lord, Jacob physically saw the Lord in glory. Initially, the Lord appeared in an impulse of light and fire some distance from Jacob. It was so intense that it knocked Jacob to the ground with such force that it popped his leg bone out of his hip socket. As a witness to the force that hit him, this injury is most often seen today in intense car accidents.
The Lord dwells in everlasting burnings, and this self-contained, nonextinguishing ball of fire was at once violent, loud, peaceful and beautiful. The overwhelming nature of the light at first pinned Jacob on his face. The light from glory is not like the light we see in the telestial kingdom. It is not just a visual phenomenon. Even with the brightest telestial light, the only physical effect is warmth on the skin. Light from glory pierces your body thoroughly. It is an utterly intense experience that permeates your being. In extreme pain from both his hip and the reaction of his flesh to the glory of God, he struggled to breathe as he attempted to shield his face from the light. The scene went on for what seemed like an eternity: Jacob struggling to hold on, and the Lord patiently waiting in silence. As the light penetrated his shielding arm and his closed eyelids, the glory began to purify Jacob's flesh. The pain started to gradually ease as the glory of God burned out his impurities. As he persisted in God’s glory, he became more and more sanctified and more and more comfortable in God’s presence. Eventually, he was able to remove his arm, then open his eyes. At first, the light was too bright to see clearly into. Then, his eyes adjusted enough that he could make out the shape of a man.
Most men, knowing they were in the presence of God, would have long since recoiled and said, “it is enough Lord.” Jacob was not like most men. Jacob was a man of great tenacity, physical strength, and courage. He mustered every ounce of strength left in his devastated frame, and he did the unthinkable. He inched his arms forward, and scraped his body forward along the rocky soil. He immediately collapsed from exhaustion. The Lord patiently waited. Recovering some fraction of strength, he repeated the process. His injured leg hung powerless by his side. He repeated the process again and again, each time using his last ounce of strength, then collapsing for some time, then pulling from some previously undiscovered reservoir of strength to inch forward again.
Eventually, he came within arm’s length to the Lord. Still prostrate, exhausted beyond measure, he lurched up and grabbed the Lord's feet. Like a boxer at the end of the bout of his life, he clung tightly to the Lord, who permitted him to remain there for a great deal of time. Finally, the Lord spoke and announced that he must go. The Lord blessed Jacob for having wrestled with his glory all night and overcoming. Most men quit long before their prayer yields the presence of the Lord. Of those who don’t, very few indeed would endure God’s glory without pleading with the Lord to stop the experience. Jacob truly was exceptional, and yet he was not exceptional enough for the Lord to tell him his name, a special blessing reserved for a special few.
We may wonder why the account we have is so abbreviated and adulterated. The answer lies in the false traditions of the revisionists. They did not like the idea of a man coming face to face with God. It offended their traditions—traditions created to sooth the pride of those who dismissed the possibility of such a story being literal in order to settle the contradiction between their inflated self-image and lack of personal experience. Our pride can drive easy acceptance of what would otherwise be dismissed as patently absurd. Thankfully, they could only revise the story so much around the two fixed points provided by the name of a physical place (Penuel means “face of God”) and the well-known tradition of Jacob's limp.
This is a literal story, but it is also archetypal in that it is the form of what every man of God experiences. Abraham crawled toward the Lord's glory throughout his life. He was born into an apostate family. He learned the value of God’s word on his own. He left a life of luxury to become a nomad. Almost everyone around him—his father, his brother, his nephew, his wives, his children—failed to appreciate his sacrifice and failed to rise up to his level of love for the Lord. Every day of his life was a test to see if he would trust God in spite of great hardship. The scriptures are filled with similar situations.
Rather than providing a list that would include almost all of scripture, here is one specific example: that of Nephi, son of Helaman. He was the president of his nation. He resigned because he could not turn away from his desire to truly help people in the most direct way—by preaching the gospel. He ranged the entire known world—including among those who were the enemies of his people and had tried to kill them—going on mission after mission (see Helaman 5).
Many mistakenly think that God will not call you on such a mission, to abandon everything you know and serve him full-time away from your home. Maybe not. But if you are to enjoy the same privileges with those who have, you will indeed be required to sacrifice to the degree that they sacrificed, even if in a different format.
Everyone is required to consecrate their lives to the Lord, including consecrating their lives to acquire, assimilate, and disseminate all the truth they can. This is the practical description of “crawling toward the Lord's glory,” as Jacob did. You will probably not do it in one night, as Jacob did. But it will be just as consummate, just as intense, and just as scarring. You will emerge from that experience changed for life, certainly emotionally and probably physically injured in some way for the rest of your life.
You will realize that the consummate effort of acquiring light and truth and packaging it for others requires your full attention. It will settle for no less. You will develop the capacity to focus to the extent needed to mine truth. You will find a space free of any interruption. You will create such a space physically by waking up very early, before anyone else in your house. You will shoulder the burden of chronic lack of sleep, summoning the strength to be true to your character in the way you treat others and not subject to your exhaustion. You will learn to cope with the rude contradiction between your early morning deep dive into the light of God and the heavier, dirtier environment of the people and things of the rest of each day. You will realize and then adjust to the fact that there is no one in your life who can comprehend how you feel. You will realize and adjust to the fact that the distance between you and the people in your life is increasing much faster than the distance between you and God is closing. You will have an uninterrupted series of invitations to slow down, to take a break, to stop, to be normal, to do something you shouldn’t do, to do something less than your best. And you will just keep on going, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute.
Having risen to a certain level of light in your daily interactions, you will seek to do more with more people. Because of technology, physically travelling across or outside of the country will probably not be the most effective way to do this. You will leverage the internet to create more interactions with more people. Like Nephi, you will find that this is your principle objective every day, and the normal pursuits of most people will become only a sidebar in your life.